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Sunday, November 13, 2011

Magic Pens are a Disappointment

After posting about the wonderful iron-away pens I purchased in Houston, see yesterday's post, I received several comments from readers about how these pens are not all they are supposed to be (thank you to the readers who shared information). Evidently the markings reappear if the fabric becomes cold. So I performed a test with the six colors I got in the packages I purchased. Here they are, just after scribbling on the fabric.

I took my hot iron and ironed away the pen markings through the middle of the scribbled lines.

And after the fabric had cooled, I put it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Here is what it looked like.

It's a little difficult to tell from this photo but some colors reappeared more so than others, but basically they all reappeared to a degree.

I'm pretty disappointed that this is how they work. I sort of feel ripped off and it makes me wonder if the vendors at the Houston show know this about these pens and purposely neglect to tell you or if they are in the dark, like I was. I don't want to tell anyone that they shouldn't buy these as I feel everyone should make their own decision about what or what not to purchase and perhaps the pens will work perfectly for some other type of application. I'm glad I found out how they work before I had used them in a large project and only to find later that the project is ruined because the pen markings reappear.

It's really too bad that they don't work like I was hoping. How perfect and magical would that have been?

In other news...

See this?

This is a beautiful (and heavy) glass plate that I received from fellow Twelve by Twelve member Karen Rips and her husband Ted. Ted is a glass artist and Karen had him create a plate for each member of the Twelve by Twelve group. He made a plate that matched one of the quilts we made for our challenges. You can see the comparison of my plate to the actual quilt here <click>. And if you scroll through the posts before and after mine on the Twelve by Twelve blog, you will see some of the other plates that Ted created.

Speaking of the Twelve by Twelve group, we have made our final decisions on what our next challenge round will be. Check out this blog post by Gerrie <click here>.